Key Phrase Research

Comprehensive Key Phrase Research Can Make You More Competitive

Key phrases are the search strings people type into search engines like Google when they’re looking for something on the Internet. In the early days of the web, search was simpler and people often searched using single words, which is why you still hear the term keywords tossed around. Over time, however, linguistic patterns related to search have changed, and today people are much more likely to search the web using key phrases (also called keyword phrases), and even sentences and questions!

The psychology of search is something we find endlessly fascinating here at McDougall Interactive, and we bring our interest and curiosity to the table when we work with our clients. By delving deeply into the minds of our clients’ customers and their customers’ on-site behaviors, we’re able to effectively identify the key phrases they are most likely to use when searching for products or services.

In other words, if you want to be found, you need help managing your keyword phrase choices and placement.

What McDougall Interactive Can Do for Your Visibility

Choosing the right key phrases is vital when it comes to search engine visibility, and can’t be done on instinct alone. The wrong keyword phrases – those that don’t match up with what people are searching for or are overly competitive – will do nothing to help your site’s rank. The team at McDougall Interactive spends hours researching the exact key phrases that will increase our clients’ visibility using several of the best tools available. We know which phrases most often get queried in the search engines, and we know how to effectively use them in text. We also know that keyword optimization should be done every six months at minimum to ensure that new trends and products aren’t overtaking those that were optimized for previously.

Example of a term that gets almost no searches:
Branded Technical Support

Another way of saying it that gets more searches:
Outsourced Technical Support

An even higher level choice, if appropriate:
Call Centers

Comprehensive Key Phrase Analysis

We approach our clients’ keyword and key phrase needs analytically, and our methodology includes many rounds of revisions. Instead of relying on one source of potential key phrases, we use multiple sources for gathering possible terms:

The Results of Key Phrase Analysis and Key Phrase Research

We do several rounds of brainstorming and many hours of research between several methods to accumulate a set of high, medium, and low level terms that we can target when we arrive at the on-page adjustments phase of a client’s project. The lists of keywords we create are used to assess what opportunities exist for generating traffic and to create a map of content and a content development plan.

In the on-page adjustment phase, we make an exact map of the terms we will be targeting (Phrases Per Page Map). In this document, we list the pages where the terms will go, as well as a list of suggested file names, title and meta tags, code adjustments, etc. If the landing pages to support the necessary keyword phrases don’t exist, we can co-create new pages and materials to support our clients’ efforts.